A Memory of Light
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash, oneshot. Harry is working late at the office one night when he receives a note from Draco.


**Title: **A Memory of Light

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco

**Rating: **G

**Wordcount: ~**1000

**Challenge: **for musicsanity08**  
Keywords:** music, bookworm, Slytherin  
**Dialogue:** "There's a moment in time and it's stuck in my mind."

**Author's Notes: **Just a short and gentle fic on a simple theme.

**A Memory of Light**

Harry sighed and shoved a pile of paperwork out of the way. Of course, that made another pile tilt and threaten to tip over. Harry caught the edge of it with a quiet curse and cast a Sticking Charm to make sure it stayed in place. Sure, he would regret that Sticking Charm later when it made the reports cling together as if gummed, but for now it did what he wanted it to do and that was enough.

If he looked up, he could see the rain falling past the enchanted windows of his office. For some reason, the Ministry had taken it into its head to have the magical weather match the real weather outside.

Harry signed his name on the bottom of the nearest report and pushed it aside. He sat for some minutes rubbing his temple, where a headache was forming, and wishing he could go home to Draco.

But if he did, then the paperwork would still be here, and the thought of it would hang over him like his own portable raincloud and ruin his weekend. With a sigh, he reached for the parchment on top of the next stack.

A memo swooped into the room and landed neatly in front of him. Harry groaned. Why shouldn't he? It was eight-o'clock on a Friday night, he had at _least _twenty more reports to check for errors and sign before he could go home (that was what happened when your partner was out sick for a week with spattergroit), and here was another bloody responsibility that someone had decided to heap on him.

Resigned, Harry opened the memo and glanced at the words inside. Then he blinked. They weren't the demand for reports or information that he had expected.

_There's a moment in time and it's stuck in my mind._

Harry laid down the memo and stared out the window at the falling rain again, but it wasn't the rain he was seeing now.

The words were Draco's. More, they were the words of a particular afternoon that held a place in Harry's memory nothing would ever destroy, because it was the afternoon that he had realized just how happy he was.

Oh, of course he had been happy before; he'd been happy when he survived the war, when he began realizing that Draco paid him the kind of half-mocking attention that he liked, when it came to him like a blast of light that he could pay Draco the same kind of attention back, and when he and Draco had gone through all the little rites of passage, the dates and careful peacemaking with each other's friends and moving in together. But those emotions passed, and then there were the moments when he felt lonely when Ron and Hermione were with the Weasley family, from which Draco was banished, or when he was upset because he and Draco quarreled, and for some reason those moments seemed to last longer.

And then that afternoon happened.

Harry was lying on the couch with a wizarding novel, engrossed; Draco teased him that he'd become a bookworm like Hermione ever since he discovered an author named Maria Pennyworth. She wrote novels about murder, secret identities, and duels in the drawing room at midnight, which Draco wouldn't touch because they were "common." Harry didn't care. He _liked _murder and secret identities and duels in the drawing room at midnight. He remembered how the images and the characters shimmered in front of him, as intense as if they were real.

But he also remembered Draco moving around the room, humming a snatch of old music under his breath. He remembered the way Draco had paused in front of the window, a slant of sunlight making his hair shine until Harry had to blink and squint to go on looking at him.

He remembered Draco reading a book of his own, and laughing aloud. Harry had paused and looked at him, in astonishment, and then in fondness. Once, Draco never would have laughed like that at a book with someone else in the room. They might have thought it was undignified, and Draco could never bear to look undignified. But now Draco laughed and laughed and leaned back in his seat, and the light shone on his face.

He remembered Draco picking up a photograph of Slytherin House, the members of his own year, all gathered together at a private party, since most of them hadn't finished their seventh year at Hogwarts in any orthodox way. His fingers lingered on the faces, and the light fell on Pansy Parkinson's in particular. She had refused to see Draco again after she learned he was dating Harry; in her own way, she was as stubborn as the Weasleys. Even in the picture, she scowled and folded her arms and moved away from Draco.

So Harry had laid his book down, and walked across the room, and wound his arms around Draco's waist.

Draco let his head drop backwards without pausing or stiffening, the way he used to. He sighed out a little as he came to rest on Harry's shoulder, and closed his eyes. The sunlight glowed on the peaceful expression on his face.

And Harry had realized how happy he was—not joyful all the time, not deliriously in love, but settled and content, with his happiness purring in the back of his mind like a banked fire. That afternoon was full of Draco.

Harry came back from the memory and looked at the memo with a little smile. Then he stood up, gathered his cloak, cast more Sticking Charms on the paperwork, and made for the door.

Yes, he'd have to come back tomorrow to take care of some of this. But he would rather have an evening full of Draco.

**End.**


End file.
